Corn, fresh from the garden …

We’ve sure been enjoying the bounty of the garden this summer.  We’ve had such a busy summer that in some ways it seems impossible that we could have such a great garden — WHEN did we find the time to tend it?!  But somehow, between our “found minutes” of caretaking and the kind hand of nature (including frequent rains), we have ended up with a respectable and very tasty harvest!

Tonight, I picked the last of the corn.  Approximately 10 ears, some sweet 16 and some a multi-colored heirloom variety.  Oh, the taste of fresh sweetcorn!  For dinner we made a lovely green salad, including fresh tomatoes.  It’s been cool for tomatoes, but still we have a small, beautiful crop.

This year’s garden reminds me that no matter how busy I am, it is WORTH it to spend a minute here and and minute there satisfying my farmerly urges!

 

Persimmon Pudding

Every once in a while it happens:  I see persimmons in the produce aisle.  And then, I can’t resist!  I bought a few the other day, and they are lined up on my window sill awaiting tomorrow evening, when I shall take them down, remove the skins, and make a batch of my Great Grandma Edith’s persimmon pudding!  It’s one of those great old recipes that calls for quarts of things!  A quart of persimmons.  A quart of flour.  And so on.  It’s also one of those great recipes that calls to mind stories from the past.  Stories of my father climbing his Grandmother’s persimmon tree, which sat out front of the farmhouse.  He would collect the ripe persimmons so that Grandma could make pudding!  He would nibble at the fruits and tells how the awful bitterness of the occasional unripe fruit would send one sputtering!  It’s fun to have family stories that go along with foods … Hopefully making the dish will create new memories to add to the file.  I’ll attach a foto once we’ve eaten it!

 

The Lilac Tour, A Train Car Diner and an Awesome Sandwich

Every spring when the lilacs are in bloom, we set aside a day for our annual “Lilac Tour” of Grand Marais, Michigan.  Situated beside Lake Superior, this quaint little town is well worth the time to visit.  We take our bicycles and pack bird books, binoculars, snacks, and extra clothing to suit the ever-changing weather … And a couple twenty dollar bills in case we find something we want to eat!!

Which we always do. There are several restaurants in Grand Marais.  Lately, we’ve been stuck on the Diner, though.  It’s located in an old train car, as well as the attached building, and they have a wonderful menu (as well as a delightful shop and meat counter).  Personally, I think their BLT is the best in the world.   Lots of bacon cooked perfectly, stacked up with lettuce and tomatoes between your choice of homemade breads — it’s so thick that I truly can’t bite the whole thing, and have to work on it in nibbles.  Mmmmm!  I wish I had a BLT right now!

Before lunch, we hike in the Au Sable Dunes.  And sometimes, we bike from the Dunes into town.  After our lunch, we like to bike around town and then head out east of town, stopping at several Piping Plover nest observation locations.  Usually we can find official observers there, often from TNC, who can give us an update on the nest activity.

If you get a chance, plan your own visit to Grand Marais.  Come ready for a great sandwich and breathtaking views of dunes, beaches, birds, and a lovely little village.

 

Gift Idea: Family Cookbook

The other day, my mom sent my sister and me an email including a recipe one of us had asked for.  It got me to thinking that it would be fun and useful to pull together a cookbook of all of our favorite recipes.  It could be just recipes that my Mom has passed on to us (which includes recipes from my Dad’s side of the family.  Or, it could be all those plus other favorite recipes in my household, which would include favorite recipes from cookbooks, friends and my sister.  It could be relatively simply laid out in Word, or slightly more complicated in Publisher or even more so in Illustrator.  It could be only text.  Or I could add clip art or , better yet, personal art or my own photos of the dishes.  I’d want to give it to my Mom, sister, nieces, and children.   

Has anyone done something similar?  I’m not interested in paying anyone else to lay it out, print or bind it.  What different methods have folks used to print? Bind? Any recommendations for heavier weight paper?

 

Big Lake Grape Jelly

We have a happy grape vine crawling along the fence between the house and the road.  This year it was very productive, as was the cherry tree that stands a few feet from it.  In fact, it was a record year for the vine.  We left most of the grapes on the vine, hesitant to pick them before they had ripened as much as possible.  Finally, two weeks ago or so, we picked most of the clusters and stored them in a cool, moist space until we had time to deal with them. 

Fastforward to today.  In the intervening weeks, I’d reviewed the Sure Gel grape jelly recipe and weighed the grapes.  About 5.5 pounds.  This morning, I cleaned them, plucking them from their clusters, and made jelly.  19 cups of jelly, to be precise!  This is not the thick, dark purple jelly we’re used to, since these aren’t Concord grapes.  We’re not sure exactly what kind of grapes we’ve got, but even when ripe, most of them are green with only about 10-20% taking on a lightly purple or pink hue.  The resulting juice is a beautiful apple cider color, and the jelly is similarly light. 

In addition to the jars I canned, I ended up with extra from each of the two batches.  I put that extra jelly into glass containers for immediate use from the fridge.  And of course, I couldn’t resist trying some!  I cut a couple slices of Sweetwater Cafe’s Three-Seed Bread, toasted and buttered it, and then topped it with this lusciously light tasting jelly! A truly delightful way to cap off a snowy, cold morning!

 

Spicy Chinese Peanut Sauce

Made this favorite Moosewood Cookbook recipe last night, served over rice with a stirfry of zucchini, leek, carrots, cauliflower & sesame seeds.  Mmmm!  I like to add just a touch extra cider vinegar for tanginess …

Here’s the recipe from The New Moosewood Cookbook (c)2000, Mollie Katzen, page 107:

1/2 cup good peanut butter
1/2 cup hot water
2 TBSP soy sauce
2 TBSP sugar
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 to 2 TBSP minced fresh cilantro
cayenne, to taste
salt, to taste (if peanut butter is unsalted)

Please peanut butter in a small bowl.  Add the hot water, stir patiently with a spoon or small whisk until uniformly mixed.  Sir in remaining ingredients and mix well.  Cover tightly and refrigerate.  Let come to room temperature before serving.

 

Third Street Bagel

Looking for a good bagel? Well, if you’re also in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, you might make the drive to Marquette’s Third Street Bagel Company.  Our favorite bagel there is the sundried tomato, toasted, with butter and sundried tomato cream cheese!  Yum!!  Perfect with a copy of hot cider…

Check out their entire menu at http://www.thirdstbagel.com/

 

Heaven: Squeaky-fresh cheese curds!

This summer, our family took a wonderful vacation to the Olympic Peninsula — it was lovely, idyllic, scenic and full of natural wonder!  We loved it there!  But the pleasure we found in Washington state in no way diminished the ecstacy we experience on our return drive, which took us through Ellsworth, Wisconsin.  For it was there that we found the Ellsworth Coop Creamery’s shop, where we bought the most delectable of delicacies:  truly fresh cheese curds!! Those who know me will attest that it is exceedingly rare for me to exclaim in the online vernacular, but here goes: OMG!!! OMG!! They were heavenly!  Squeakiness, and a lightness of flavor are among the key traits of truly fresh cheesecurds — Those pasty, chewy little cheese nuggets you get in the grocery story are not fresh and they are not for me.  And if you will make a point to visit a local cheese factory as you travel through our fair land, I believe you will share my high opinion of this simple food!  Give it a try!

To learn more about cheese curds, visit the Ellsworth Coop Creamery website!

 

‘Tis the Season for Garden Salad

Spring has finally sprung in earnest here … Maybe!  We’ve had to cover our plants for fear of frost several times in the past couple weeks, but we’re hoping that’s over!  Our garden is looking great, with the cool-weather crops leading the way.  For me that means the beginning of one of our shortest but bestest seasons:  the season for garden salad!  I love the fresh little sprouts of spring, and this year’s crop is especially vigorous.  Tonight for supper we had salad, salad and more salad — yum!  Pretty traditional, but here’s the ingredients we chose:

Fresh Garden Salad

Mesclun mix
Baby spinach
Baby romaine
Baby bokchoy
Cilantro
Raw Cheddar Cheese (cubed)
Dried cranberries
Sprinkle w/chopped pecans & slightly crushed Rye Triscuits
Dressing: Raspberry vinaigrette

 

Rhubarb Pie & cinnamon’n'sugar dough balls

Joy!  One of the biggest thrills of Spring is the first rhubarb pie of the season, and we had ours yesterday!  I had actually picked the rhubarb Sunday afternoon.  We had spent much of the afternoon working in the garden, getting most of the remaining plants and seeds into the ground.  (We’ve still got tomato plants and corn under the grow lights inside;  we’ll plant them after Memorial Day.)  It was getting windy and cooling down, but having been subjected to several hours of temptation by the lush new growth of the rhubarb plants, I couldn’t help myself:  I went inside and got a knife and a bowl and proceeded to pick just enough of the young shoots to fill a pie!

Last night after work, I quickly rolled out a crust and filled the pie.  I gave the unbaked pie along with baking instructions to my trusty friend, who took them to his place and got the baking started while I walked the few miles to his house for fresh air and exercise.  When I approached his house, I was listening to the cardinals and an oriole singing in the surrounding woods.  But it was the smell of the finished pie that really grabbed my attention!

Rhubarb pie takes me back to my youth, making me think of my Mom and her amazing cooking.  One of the things she always did when baking was roll any extra pie crust into balls, roll them in cinnamon/sugar mix, and bake them alongside the pie.  These “dough balls,” as we unceremoniously refered to them, were always a favorite treat — as if the pie itself were not enough, these were an added bonus!  We had about 8 this time, several of which were eaten immediately, and the remainder of which went with us for lunch today.

As to recipes for Rhubarb pie, here’s an instance where I rely on good ol’ Betty — Betty Crocker cookbook, that is!  Rhubard is so easy to grow and so much fun to eat, so I recommend you ‘go for it’!  Oh — and when picking out plants for your garden, it’s worth the extra effort to get red plants vs. green.  They make everything so much prettier!  Enjoy!